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Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Harvard University researchers say the brains of infants who die from sudden infant death syndrome may produce low levels of a vital chemical called serotonin.

The chemical conveys messages between cells and is essential in regulating breathing, heart rate and sleep, the researchers said in a statement.

Sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS, is defined as death of an infant before his or her first birthday that cannot be explained after a complete autopsy, homicide investigation or a review of the medical history of the baby and his family.

The National Center for Health Statistics says SIDS is the third-leading cause of infant deaths, responsible for more than 2,000 deaths in 2006.

The researchers say the low levels of serotonin may inhibit a baby's ability to deal with breathing challenges like low oxygen levels or high carbon dioxide levels. Carbon dioxide may accumulate when babies rebreath air while sleeping face down.

Doctors recommend placing babies on their backs for sleeping.

The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health and it appears in The Journal of the American Medical Association.

Michael Jackson’s physician has been strategizing with his team of defence attorneys and is ready to surrender to authorities if prosecutors file charges, the doctor’s attorney said.

Dr. Conrad Murray, who has a practice in Houston, came to Los Angeles last weekend and spent Tuesday afternoon meeting with his newly assembled team of three lawyers. The district attorney’s office has not said if it will file charges, but lead defence attorney Ed Chernoff said Dr. Murray is ready for such a move.

“I haven’t received any phone call from anybody asking for the doctor to surrender,” Mr. Chernoff said. “If we get the call, we’ll be happy to.”

David Walgren, the deputy Los Angeles County district attorney handling the case, declined to comment.

Jackson, 50, hired Dr. Murray to be his personal physician as he prepared for a strenuous series of comeback performances in London. His death on June 25 in Los Angeles came after Dr. Murray, tending to Jackson in the star’s rented mansion, administered the powerful anesthetic propofol and two other sedatives to get the chronic insomniac to sleep, according to the Los Angeles County coroner’s office, which ruled the death a homicide. Read More..

A roadside bomb in northwest Pakistan has killed three U.S. soldiers and four others traveling to the reopening ceremony of a girls school recently renovated with U.S. assistance.

Pakistani officials say at least three children died in the attack and more than 60 people were wounded.

The bomb exploded in a village in the Lower Dir district near Swat Valley, a region the Pakistani military says was largely cleared of militants in an offensive a year ago.

A statement from the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad said the American military personnel were part of an ongoing training program with paramilitary troops in the northwest. It said the soldiers had traveled to Lower Dir to attend the inauguration ceremony for the girls' school.

Pakistani and U.S. officials have condemned the attack.

No American combat troops are officially stationed in Pakistan. U.S. aid initiatives in northwest Pakistan are aimed in part at strengthening paramilitary forces and improving local civilian governments to better counter Taliban and al Qaida influence in the region.

On Tuesday, suspected U.S. drones fired missiles at several suspected militant hideouts in Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal region, killing at least 16 people.

North Waziristan is known as a base for the Taliban-allied Haqqani group, which is blamed for cross-border attacks against U.S., NATO and Afghan troops in Afghanistan.

U.S. officials do not publicly comment on the drone strikes, which have raised tensions between Pakistan and the United States in the past.

Meanwhile, the death toll from four days of violence in Pakistan's southern port city of Karachi has reached at least 26, after at least six more people were killed Tuesday.

The clashes appeared to be between activists from rival political parties - the Muttahida Qaumi Movement and the Awami National Party - which traditionally gather support from different ethnic groups.

Funk star George Clinton is in mourning after his 50-year-old son, George Clinton Jr. was found dead at his Tallahassee, Florida home on Monday.

A maintenance man checking on Clinton's welfare discovered the body, which was reportedly there for several days before it was found. Police in Tallahassee, Florida, where Clinton Sr. owned a studio that employed his son, say the death was likely due to natural causes as there was no indication of foul play.

"Barring any finding by the Medical Examiner's Office, our investigation is complete," said the Sheriff's Office, who said the senior Clinton, 68, had been notified of his son’s death.

Clinton Jr. had one daughter, Shonda, who performed under the name Sativa. The mastermind of P-Funk, Clinton Sr. was just in attendance at the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles.

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) – Current and former football players are weighing in and they support the college football superstar and his family in their television commercial that will run during the Super Bowl. Focus on the Family has purchased time for an ad that will focus on how Tebow’s mother Pam refused to have an abortion.

Pam Tebow was pregnant with Tim Tebow when she was on a missions trip to the Philippines and when she took heavy medication after getting dysentery her doctor suggested an abortion because the drugs could harm the baby.

She refused and Tebow has gone on to win the Heisman Trophy and lead the Florida Gators to a national championship.

As Baptist Press indicates, Christian players interviewed at the Pro Bowl expressed strong support for Tebow’s family and the ad.

David Garrard, quarterback for the NFL Jacksonville Jaguars, applauded Tebow for standing up for his convictions.

“I applaud him for standing up for what he believes,” he said. “More people, more athletes should do the same.”

David Akers, a kicker for the Philadelphia Eagles, added that he is “definitely pro-life,” had adopted a child and he supports the ad and its support for unborn children.

“They have a life,” Akers said according to BP, “and if you take that away, that’s pretty cruel. If you get into the politics of what should and shouldn’t happen, I’m definitely biblically based. I think that’s creation and we shouldn’t harm it.”

Heath Miller, a tight end for the Pittsburgh Steelers said he appreciates how the ad, which will have the tag Celebrating Life, Celebrating Family, encourages people.

“I think Tim has every right to use every stage to tell people what he believes,” Miller said, according to BP. “He’s a football player, he can relay what he believes just as much as anyone else can.”

Seeing football players supporting the pro-life cause is nothing new.

More than two decades ago, members of the New York Giants recorded a video called Champions for Life and players on the 1987 Super Bowl champion team Phil Simms and Mark Bavaro stood up for life.

And pro-life Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kurt Warner taped a television commercial for pro-life advocates in Missouri who were fighting a ballot initiative to promote killing unborn children for their stem cells for dubious research.

Note to NYPD cop Roosevelt Green: Next time get over to the Sports Authority and buy yourself a nice warm up suit and sneakers: It will be a lot less trouble and a whole lot cheaper.

Federal wire intercepts captured conversations in which Green, a sergeant in NYPD, asked a major drug dealer for a nice warm up suit and sneakers after he did the dealer a favor and traced some license plates of two DEA surveillance vehicles.

Problem is, the intercepts also picked up conversations of the dope dealer asking Green to trace the plates.

On Tuesday, in New York federal court, he paid a high price for it all: The judge sentenced Green to six months in jail for lying to DEA agents about looking up the plates.

“The intercepted conversations further revealed that, while on duty in an NYPD patrol car on March 31, 2007, Green used NYPD computers to obtain vehicle registration information for two vehicles and provided that information to Wilson,” the U.S. Attorney’s press release said.

WASHINGTON – The FBI fatal shooting in October of a Muslim imam in suburban Detroit is continuing to generate plenty controversy.

Rep. John Conyers (D-Mi), chairman of the House Judiciary, is calling for an independent investigation into the shooting of imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah, the Detroit News reported.

An autopsy report released Monday showed the imam had died from 21 gun shot wounds after agents opened fire during a raid at a warehouse in Dearborn, Mi. The FBI has said agents opened fire after the imam shot an FBI dog.

The early bad news is that Paul Pierce could have a broken foot and will miss significant time. The early good news if you snowboard, is that both Wiarton Willie and Punxsutawney Phil saw their respective shadows meaning no early spring. Yes, all Ray Allen trade rumors did just grinding to a caliper busting stop.The injury appears more serious than a sprain — NBA.com’s David Aldridge wrote that a source told him it “looks that way” when asked if Pierce has a broken foot, and Channel 7 is reporting that Pierce will miss significant time. He is expected to have the foot re-examined before any information is released. Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge told Comcast SportsNet’s Gary Tanguay this afternoon that the team is still determining the diagnosis and Pierce’s status.

“We just don’t know,” he said. “We basically don’t know the extent of the injury. The doctors don’t have all the information to make the decision. We expect to make an announcement tomorrow.”

Cheer up Celtics fans, at least you can still schedule that late snowboarding trip to Vermont.

Michael Vick wants to be a starter next season and believes that he can be if the Eagles decide to trade him during the offseason. Oh, and he still thinks that he’s a top 10 quarterback too.

From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Vick, who will turn 30 in June, then went back on his previous statement about returning as a backup. “As I think about it now, getting back to your previous question, it would be fairly hard [to return to the Eagles as a backup],” he said. “I know I can play in this league. I know I still have a lot of games left in me. I can be improved and be in shape and have an opportunity to go play somewhere else in the league. I’m just being optimistic and hoping that things work out in my favor. To be honest, I do want to play.”

Vick, who noted how difficult it was to play “sporadically” as he did last season, was asked by Patrick where he ranks among current NFL quarterbacks. “I still feel like I’m among the top 10, to be honest. I’m confident in my skills,” Vick said.

While you have to appreciate his confidence, I think Mikey is being a little unrealistic. I would take Peyton Manning, Drew Brees, Philip Rivers, Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, Ben Roethlisberger, Tony Romo, Carson Palmer, Brett Favre, Donovan McNabb and Eli Manning over Vick in a heartbeat, and I wouldn’t hesitate to take Matt Schaub, Joe Flacco, Matt Ryan and Vince Young over him either.

That said, he’s better than Trent Edwards and Marc Bulger, so as a fan I would be intrigued to see what he could do as a starter in either Buffalo or St. Louis. Maybe he’ll get the opportunity in one of those cities next season.

Michael Vick wants to be a starter next season and believes that he can be if the Eagles decide to trade him during the offseason. Oh, and he still thinks that he’s a top 10 quarterback too.

From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Vick, who will turn 30 in June, then went back on his previous statement about returning as a backup. “As I think about it now, getting back to your previous question, it would be fairly hard [to return to the Eagles as a backup],” he said. “I know I can play in this league. I know I still have a lot of games left in me. I can be improved and be in shape and have an opportunity to go play somewhere else in the league. I’m just being optimistic and hoping that things work out in my favor. To be honest, I do want to play.”

Vick, who noted how difficult it was to play “sporadically” as he did last season, was asked by Patrick where he ranks among current NFL quarterbacks. “I still feel like I’m among the top 10, to be honest. I’m confident in my skills,” Vick said.

While you have to appreciate his confidence, I think Mikey is being a little unrealistic. I would take Peyton Manning, Drew Brees, Philip Rivers, Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, Ben Roethlisberger, Tony Romo, Carson Palmer, Brett Favre, Donovan McNabb and Eli Manning over Vick in a heartbeat, and I wouldn’t hesitate to take Matt Schaub, Joe Flacco, Matt Ryan and Vince Young over him either.

That said, he’s better than Trent Edwards and Marc Bulger, so as a fan I would be intrigued to see what he could do as a starter in either Buffalo or St. Louis. Maybe he’ll get the opportunity in one of those cities next season.

By JONATHAN TURLEYA church in Oregon has the infamous reputation of killing children in the name of faith. Now, two parents — Jeff and Marci Beagley — have been found guilty of negligent homicide. Their case was discussed in this prior column. It is a welcomed charge (often religious parents are given lesser charges in the death of their children due to faith-healing), but the likely sentence is likely to be relatively low given the history of this church and the loss of life.

They will face only 16-18 months in the death of their sixteen-year-old Neil who died from a urinary tract blockage that could have been easily addressed by doctors. I have argued that faith-healing parents are being given special and lenient treatment over other neglectful parents, here.

The Followers of Christ church rejects conventional medicine in favor of faith-healing.

Justin Mentell, an actor who appeared on “Boston Legal,” is dead following a car accident an hour south of Madison, Wisconsin. Justin Mentell was driving an SUV which went down an embankment and hit two trees.

According to the Iowa County Sheriff’s Department the 27-year-old Mentell’s death resulted from the actor not wearing a seat belt during the crash. Police say that drugs or alcohol were not involved.

Justin Mentell played attorney Garrett Wells on “Boston Legal” from 2005 to 2006 and was in the movie “G-Force.”

The Lancet has retracted the 1998 paper that started the scare over a purported link between MMR vaccines and autism, days after a UK regulator censured the unethical behaviour of its lead author, the doctor Andrew Wakefield.

Among last week's findings of the General Medical Council was that Wakefield “caused blood to be taken from a group of children” at a party, and paid each child £5 for their blood.

The Lancet's editor, Richard Horton, tells the Guardian that when he read the GMC ruling, it became clear that statements in the paper were "utterly false" and that he felt "deceived". Concerns had been raised about the conduct of Wakefield's study in 2004 - but the Royal Free Hospital, where Wakefield worked, said his investigations "had been subjected to appropriate and rigorous ethical scrutiny." The Lancet now says that "the claims in the original paper that children were 'consecutively referred' and that investigations were 'approved' by the local ethics committee have been proven to be false."

Evan Harris, an MP who is the Liberal Democrat's science spokesman, said he welcomed the complete retraction, but added that it "could and should have been done six years ago ... journals don't need to wait for court or GMC findings of fact to retract obviously flawed or unethical papers."

Employees at American International Groupare accepting a bonus reduction of $20 million, nearly a year after their bonuses received national attention, prompting a U.S. House of Representatives’ subcommittee hearing.Today (Feb. 3), AIG plans to dole out another set of bonuses totaling $100 million to those in its Financial Products division, according to the Washington Post. That unit is seen by many as the part of the insurer that caused many of its financial problems.

The Post reports that the bonuses will go to those who agreed recently to accept 10% to 20% less in payments promised two years ago in return for payment a month ahead of schedule. The report estimates that 97% of the Financial Products unit reached this deal.

Last March, the House subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance, and Government Sponsored Enterprises held a hearing to explore the federal government’s nearly $182 billion investment in the failing insurer and how repayment to American taxpayers will occur. In addition, the panel looked at and was critical of the status of $165 million in bonuses AIG bestowed upon members of AIG Financial Products.

Following the hearing and the request of the former CEO of AIG, Edward Liddy, numerous employees returned their bonuses. Media reports indicate that $19 million was returned.

Talking to reporters following announcement of the bonuses, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), a ranking member of the Finance Committee, said the insurer “has taxpayers over a barrel.

“The Obama administration has been outmaneuvered,” he said, according to the report. “And the closed-door negotiations just add to the skepticism that the taxpayers will ever get the upper hand.”

CIA Director Leon Panetta warned al-Qaida is changing its tactics in a way that makes terror plots harder to detect.

Panetta, National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair and FBI Director Robert Mueller delivered a threat assessment Tuesday to the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee. All agreed al-Qaida would try to attack U.S. interests in the next six months.

Panetta said the prime threat isn't an attack on the scale of Sept. 11, 2001, but that "al-Qaida is adapting its methods in ways that oftentimes make it difficult to detect." He described the new danger as a "lone-wolf strategy," in which relatively new recruits with little training are sent to carry out attacks.

Such apparently was the case of the Dec. 25 attempted bombing of a jetliner headed to Detroit. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who has been linked to an al-Qaida group in Yemen, has been charged in the attack.

There has been controversy regarding charging Abdulmutallab in civilian courts rather than in a military setting but Mueller said that arrangement hasn't stopped authorities from gaining important information from terror suspects, including Abdulmutallab.

Blair said another intelligence-community concern is the growing number of computer attacks.

Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams will undergo heart surgery later this week in the United States. He is expected to be away from four to six weeks.A decision to leave Canada for the surgery, especially if it is available here, raises questions about the Premier's confidence in Newfoundland's health care system

Keith and Markos Moulitsas discuss the Republicans absolute refusal to cooperate with the Democrats on anything and the latest numbers from this poll done by Kos' research company -- The 2010 Comprehensive Daily Kos/Research 2000 Poll of Self-Identified Republicans:

MOULITSAS: Well, what we found with this poll—and we‘re releasing it tomorrow at around noon Eastern Time, and this is a nonpartisan independent pollster—is that about 1/3 of Republicans are what to be characterized as sane, about 1/3 think Obama was born in the United States, about 1/3 don‘t think Obama should be impeached. We‘re talking impeachment here, without a hint of scandal.

About 1/3 believe that sex education should be taught in schools and so on. I mean, this is a fairly comprehensive poll.

And the other 2/3 either are completely insane or just aren‘t sure. I mean, 1/3 think that maybe we ought to debate whether Obama was born in the United States; 1/3 think that maybe ACORN stole the 2008 election. I mean, it‘s pretty, pretty crazy stuff. And I think a lot of this is driven by FOX News and Rush Limbaugh and this incredible, reality-bending, ultimate media machine that the right has.The results are nothing short of startling. Read on...

For the second time in a year, Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman is fed up with President Barack Obama and his penchant for telling Americans to save their money and avoid Las Vegas:

“Mayor Oscar Goodman holds a press conference inside his downtown Las Vegas office Tuesday, February 2, 2010. Goodman was upset about the following statement made by President Obama: “When times are tough, you tighten your belts,” Obama said. “You don’t go buying a boat when you can barely pay your mortgage. You don’t blow a bunch of cash in Vegas when you’re trying to save for college.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid suggested Obama “lay off Las Vegas,” and a host of Nevada politicians joined the chorus objecting to Obama’s comments. However, it was Mayor Goodman who stole the show:

“Every time he talks about people spending money in Las Vegas, it has to hurt us,” he said. “It’s a natural consequence of his statement.”

Asked if he thought the president might have just made a slip of the tongue, Goodman said that being negative about Las Vegas must be in his mindset.

“He’s got his own psychological quirk up there about Las Vegas,” Goodman said. “That’s our town, folks. You should be angry about it, too.”

“I want the president to straighten this out,” Goodman said. “If not, he’s not welcome in my city, as far as I’m concerned. He’s not our friend. I don’t know about people in Nevada, but in Las Vegas, he’s sure not our friend.”

Goodman said he didn’t care if he received criticism again for going after the president.

“What? Little weenies are going to criticize me? Forgetaboutit. I could care less about that,” he said. “I’m the mayor, I’m trying to protect Las Vegas. And I don’t care what these little pundits say.”

“I think he has a psychological hangup about us,” he said. Because apparently, these statements are not the ones that are on the monitors. He does fine on the monitors. You get him off the monitors and Las Vegas creeps into his mind. He’s got a problem with us. I don’t know what it is.”

The mayor said Obama shouldn’t plan to visit Las Vegas until he’s retracted his statement. Goodman said he didn’t plan to meet with President Obama in a meeting this month to Las Vegas.

“Not without an apology, no.”

Obama has since apologized and maybe he’s learning not to mess with Las Vegas. Then again, maybe Obama is doing his part to make sure Schumer or Durbin takes Reid’s place as Majority Leader. After all, Reid’s polls are plummeting and does anyone really think Obama has forgotten Reid’s comments about him?

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